Contactor Conundrum.

[La Poste]

Greetings.

I have bought myself a Contactor to wire into the garage lights so they switch on when the electric garage door is raised.



Unfortunately it did not come with any literature and seeing as how this is the first time I have ever wired one I thought I would ask here for a bit of advice.

I am guessing that terminals 1 and 2 are for the feed signal from the door and terminals 3 and 4 are for the load which is the supply to the lights.

Is this correct?

The garage door has a small light that illuminates when the door is opened and I was thinking of wiring the feed to the Contactor in parallel with the light.

The supply to the garage lights (load) would go from a 6 Amp MCB, through the Contactor then to the lights and then back to the neutral of the board so the Contactor will be wired in parallel with the garage door light as a feed and in series with the garage lights which are the load.

Can anyone help me with this one?

Thanks very much.

 

[vaughant]

Mate,use a timer "on delay",it just clips on the front of the contactor,it's a mechanical device and never fails,well not in my lifetime anyway!! can then set it for 3 seconds to 30 minutes,I'll dig one out in work and even mark up where to put the wires on it for you,I'm sure we've got 240v triggered contactors there as well.
Leave me have a look tommorow when I get in on nights and we'll sort something out,you'll have it working like a dream!!

 

[vaughant]

Also you can mount the limit at the top instead,would be out of harms way then.reflectors and lasers are good but are lifed components and will eventually fail and are a lot more expensive.

 

[La Poste]

Thanks mate you're a star.

There's nothing urgent about this, it's just a conundrum that's teasing my little brain.

If I mount the switch at the top of the door the lights won't switch on until the roller reaches the top of the door.

If I mount the switch at the bottom it's likely to get damaged.

That's why I like the idea of an optical switch, the light source can be mounted out of harms way and there will only be a piece of reflective plastic attached to the bottom of the door.

 

[Knobhead]

La Poste, take vaughant up on his offer of a 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] hand limit and use my drawing. It’s the quickest and easiest way around it.

 

[La Poste]

Would a Contactor coil operate without a neutral?

Say there was no neutral in sight like behind a light switch and all you had was a live feed in and a live feed out.

Would this be enough to energise the Contactor coil or would the volt drop across the coil terminals A and B not be enough?

 

[Knobhead]

No you need to take a neutral to it.